We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
"There is no magic point at which a genuine college-level education becomes an option, but anything below an IQ of 110 is problematic. If you want to do well, you should have an IQ of 115 or higher. Put another way, it makes sense for only about 15% of the population, 25% if one stretches it, to get a college education. And yet more than 45% of recent high school graduates enroll in four-year colleges. Adjust that percentage to account for high-school dropouts, and more than 40% of all persons in their late teens are trying to go to a four-year college--enough people to absorb everyone down through an IQ of 104.
"No data that I have been able to find tell us what proportion of those students really want four years of college-level courses, but it is safe to say that few people who are intellectually unqualified yearn for the experience, any more than someone who is athletically unqualified for a college varsity wants to have his shortcomings exposed at practice every day. They are in college to improve their chances of making a good living. What they really need is vocational training. But nobody will say so, because 'vocational training' is second class. 'College' is first class.
"Large numbers of those who are intellectually qualified for college also do not yearn for four years of college-level courses. They go to college because their parents are paying for it and college is what children of their social class are supposed to do after they finish high school. They may have the ability to understand the material in Economics 1 but they do not want to. They, too, need to learn to make a living--and would do better in vocational training.
That could keep you entertained for a while. (Some just audio - it starts with Delia. Second in the line-up is Blind Willy McTell. Good, solid stuff. A treat. The pieces run in series)
Bailey argues that it's because of moral presumptions, biases really. I'd agree that that is a factor, but he doesn't consider peoples' healthy skepticism about the Truth du Jour. Science offers theories, not facts. Educated people know that Science is not a religion, and few scientists claim Truth.
Few things that were believed to be "scientific truths" 50 years ago are believed today, and the same will apply 50 years from today.
I was rummaging through the digital attic yesterday and came across this little gem.
If you weren't hanging around Maggie's during the 2008 presidential election, you really missed something.
The media attention we received was simply fierce.
Ah, they just don't make presidential races like that anymore.
And, unfortunately, that's true. They didn't do a 2012 update, but the above is still active. To make your own, click here. If you want to embed the player on your own site, like above, open the source code of the displayed page and copy the block from <OBJECT> to </OBJECT> to the source code of your own page. It may not be topical, with that glaring '2008', but at least you can file it in your 'Favorite Memories' section.
I present this not only for fun, but as a casual reminder of how easy it's become to overlay video on top of video and have it look 100% perfect. The only scene where they flubbed up was the bus going by, but the rest was excellent.
On the subject, I hereby move we strike the word incontrovertible from the language.
At this very moment, someone out there is doctoring a video to make an innocent man look guilty of murder. This video, the prosecuting attorney will tell the jury, is incontrovertible proof of the defendant's guilt. You will watch the accused murder the innocent victim with (slamming fist on jury box railing) your own two eyes!
It's a word whose time has come and gone.
Looking For Links Dept.
On the subject of video doctoring, I once saw a terrific video on YouTube of a UFO flying along, right there in front of you, big as day. As I recall, it was shot from inside a moving vehicle driving through the brush. Despite years of skepticism on your part, you had to admit that the final proof was right there before your very eyes.
Then they re-played it, this time with a split screen, with the original video on one side and the identical-but-doctored video on the other. When it comes to 'home gimmickry' and the average slob fooling around with modern video editing programs, it was a masterpiece, and I'd like to include it in a future post on the subject.
Also, I have a page of web vids in my Art Gallery where the music really makes the video. I have the half-feeling I've asked this before, but I'll give it another shot.
I once saw a commercial on TV (which I presume has since been videoized to YouTube) that took place in the downtown part of a city, presumably New York. I can't remember if it was a smile or a nice gesture, like helping out a stranger with something small, but it traveled from person to person through the streets, finally making some kind of loop at the end. I honestly don't remember if the music was anything special, but there's a pretty good chance it was, and, if so, I'd like to include it on the page.
Let Them Eat Fat - Listening to the doctors on cable TV, you might
think that it's better to cook up a batch of meth than to cook with
butter. But eating basic, earthy, fatty foods isn't just a supreme
experience of the senses—it can actually be good for you.
Fear of fat has become a national sickness, an all-American eating
disorder: Call it fatnorexia. Where is Uncle Toby from Shakespeare's
"Twelfth Night" lamenting that, under the oncoming reign of Puritan
strictures, "there shall be no cakes and ale"?
Holy mackerel. They do color-blind, gender-blind admissions. Readers know that I do not think that we should categorize people in those ways anyway. Character and capability only.
I agree with Buddy about this tune. Let's do one more Irish post. You do not need to know Gaelic to understand the song. That's how it works with good songs.
There is great risk in that life plan. I often remind people that being put out to pasture is a quite modern invention. Originally an ideal of European Socialists, in the US it did not become a plausible plan until the Depression when it seemed politically useful to take "mature" adults - "seasoned citizens" - out of the labor force to reduce unemployment.
I have never understood what is so ideal about being unproductive and useless with a life of recreation, errand-running, and lawn-mowing. In my experience, people thrive on productivity and responsbility (while bitching about it of course) and frequently decay without it. If Heaven entails floating around blissfully on clouds all day, I have no interest in it. Anybody who wants that can have it today. It's called heroin.
Still, people pursue a degree of economic security, because constant worry is no fun. Except for the most ambitious and talent-driven, it seems to me that most people will be as resourceful as they need to be to try to construct whatever life they desire. I just hate to see people seduced by phoney pop-cultural dreams of lying in the hammock or farting into the sofa for 25 years.
I don't know who Palin's speechwriter is — and, for all I know, she writes them herself — but whoever it is, he or she is just terrific. Practically every third line in her CPAC speech was like something out of a book of Great Conservative Quotes.
Here Ted Cruz, like a good Texan; he comes to town, he chews barbed wire and spits our rust.
No, it's not about the bad guys, it's all about the lead, like solely that chunk of metal did the crime. That's like saying, solely that fork made me fat.
And background checks? Yeah, I guess, to learn more about a person's thinking and associations and intentions? More background checks? Dandy idea, Mr. President. Shoulda started with yours.
Remember 'No Drama Obama'? If only. Now it's All-Drama Obama. We don't have leadership coming out of Washington. We have reality television.
Whether it's green energy or free Obama phones — or prophylactics — if you don't have a team of lobbyists in D.C. or a cancelled campaign contribution check, well, you're not at the table. You're on the menu.
It was about then that she took a sip from a Big Gulp and brought down the house.
I suppose a lot of politicians use the phrase "we, the people" in their speeches, but the only two politicos who I ever believed actually meant it were Teddy Roosevelt and Sarah Palin.
Man, that article is interesting. Look at the room that thing's in. Linenfold wainscot. Looks like oak. You might already know this, but wainscot means the side of a wagon -- a wain. Pitsawn lumber was hard to come by, so joiners would split green oak to make lumber for everything. Eventually the split wagon sides started getting nailed on the lower half of the walls indoors. They'd carve the panels inside the frames to look like an open book, or a piece of linen, folded up. It was considered barbarous after a while, (gothic) so only the oldest houses in England had it, until it was revived three hundred years later or so. Neato.
My freedom in practice is to see people anytime I want or can, to work whatever hours I want to, to follow no imposed treatment protocols, to set my own fees and to provide as much charity as I wish, and to help anybody I chose to.
Nobody tells me what to do or how to do it. Maybe I'm a dinosaur. I'll see patients on a Saturday or Sunday if need be.
A quote from the article:
Once they work for hospitals, physicians change their behavior in two principal ways. Often they see fewer patients and perform fewer timely procedures. Continuity of care also declines, since a physician's responsibilities end when his shift is over. This means reduced incentives for doctors to cover weekend calls, see patients in the ER, squeeze in an office visit, or take phone calls rather than turfing them to nurses. It also means physicians no longer take the time to give detailed sign-offs as they pass care of patients to other doctors who cover for them on nights, weekends and days off.
Most hospitals exacerbate these strains by measuring the productivity of the physician practices they purchase in "Relative Value Units." This is a formula that Medicare already uses to set doctor-payment rates. RVUs are supposed to measure how much time and physical effort a doctor requires to perform different clinical endeavors.
Her: "Honey, I know you want snuggles but I don't feel close to you. You never talk to me or share your feelings."
Him: "But I am talking to you right now, and I am sharing my strongest, most personal feelings: Please take off your clothes and let's hop into bed and have some fun."
Similar:
Her: "Honey, let's take another marriage class at church so we can open up with eachother and communicate better."
Him: "I learned at the last one we did that I communicate best non-verbally."
12:1 Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.
12:2 There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him.
12:3 Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
12:4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said,
12:5 "Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?"
12:6 (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.)
12:7 Jesus said, "Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.
12:8 You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me."
FOR every hour that thou wilt spare me now, I will allow, Usurious god of love, twenty to thee, When with my brown my gray hairs equal be. Till then, Love, let my body range, and let Me travel, sojourn, snatch, plot, have, forget, Resume my last year's relict; think that yet We'd never met.
Let me think any rival's letter mine, And at next nine Keep midnight's promise; mistake by the way The maid, and tell the lady of that delay; Only let me love none; no, not the sport From country grass to confitures of court, Or city's quelque-choses; let not report My mind transport.
This bargain's good; if when I'm old, I be Inflamed by thee, If thine own honour, or my shame and pain, Thou covet most, at that age thou shalt gain. Do thy will then; then subject and degree And fruit of love, Love, I submit to thee. Spare me till then; I'll bear it, though she be One that love me.
Opening day in these parts will be March 30, the day before Easter. Here is Gwynnie last season wearing as little as she can so as not to scare the fish. Get those reels lubed and those old lines straightened!
Our friend at the 
Government as 
Unlike, it seems, some or many of the young women in Medicine today (50%), I never had any interest in being anybody's employee.
Burning fossil fuels is
Love's Usury